PMP® Exam Prep, The Importance Of Quality Assurance

Quality Assurance is all about managing quality metrics while performing the project work. For example: While engineers are working on programming robots (project deliverables), they have to ensure that the robots pick and place of a machining part is within a predefined tolerance zone. Also consider the example of a programmer writing code for web applications (a deliverable of a project) who must ensure that every variable defined in the developer's code must contain a description of each variable in the code described as part of the quality metric.

Looking at the above 2 examples, it is very clear that while performing the project work, quality assurance must be met, otherwise the defects/rework will surface during quality control. If quality metrics are not checked then quality control has to identify the defect/rework and issue a change request for corrective action. This situation will increase the time for delivery and the project cost because of a lengthy cycle through Quality Control, Change Control and the Approval Process.

It is always in the benefit of the project that the project manager ensures that the quality metric defined during Quality Planning is adherred to with no deviation during project execution. We all know that prevention is built in during quality planning and assured during project execution and final testing is performed during quality control.